more cards

I purchased a box of product from Andrea, to use in my classes. I was pretty happy to see a sheet of this paper, it's one of the ones I've been hoarding. I think it has to do with the big sigh of relief every person lets out when they discover the test they are about to take is multiple choice! I'm not so big on vintage little kid stamps but I really like this set, I think it's because they remind me of the Campbell's soup kids.

This one uses some SU paper and some of my newly acquired Andrea stuff.

This one is Andrea stuff and a retired SU set. I love Boogly Eyes, it's my favourite Halloween set. I wasn't sure how a Halloween card would go over in class but they all loved it.
I hate spiders but I love this stamp!

Stamp-A-Stack

Classes have really be few and far between. People are busy, money is tight, so when I only had one person sign up for the SAS, I had to cancel it. But then someone said "Put it on Facebook" so I did. And within hours I had a full class. We made Christmas cards, it's never to early to start. I love these kind of classes because I always pull out the stuff I've been hoarding.


The best part, I had a newbie, Karla, and she did great, and now she's hooked. It was a great assortment of people, but I had them working so hard that they hardly had time to talk.

I'm planning more classes so keep an eye open for them.

Teenage Dream(with me)

I almost peed my pants laughing at this.

3 times a charm.

That's right! It says FOCUS, and it has a camera. I kill myself sometimes. I 'made' this today.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Shipping will be cheap, as My Neighbour Karla (anonymous) won the little camera charm.

I whipped these up this morning. Seriously, whipped them up. Super easy. Super yummy.

Quick and Easy Pretzels

1 tsp. yeast

350 ml warm water

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

850 ml flour

1 egg mixed with 15 ml water

course salt

Sprinkle yeast over warm water. Stir until dissolved with wooden spoon. Stir in sugar, salt, and flour. Dough will be sticky and soft. Knead 5-8 minutes (oh, kitten arms don't fail me now) until smooth and elastic, adding up to 1/2 cup of flour more. Cut ball in 1/2, then in 6's and roll into long worms about 15" long. Twist up pretzel like, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with course salt and bake on a greased cookie sheet for 425 degrees for 15 minutes.

Do not eat them warm. Do not dip them in melted butter and sprinkle parmesan cheese on them. You won't like that.

42!

That's about the number of days until "Kerry, Kelli and Emily's Big Road Trip". It is sometimes called "The Road Trip In Which We Show Our Inner Foodie Geekiness & Eat Our Way To California".I'll explain.

We love to watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. And I LOVE to cook, and eat. We were going to fly to Disneyland for Amy and David's wedding. But then we thought we'd drive to Seattle and visit Della, but then we jokingly said "Why don't we just drive the whole way?" and Kerry wants to drive the Oregon coast again so it was a plan. And then someone, me, said "We should eat our way there!" We got out our Triple D cookbooks and mapped our route.

We've added a stop along the way...Karen Russell recommended we stop at Voodoo Donuts, even if the line up is an hour long. Everyone agreed with that. So we will stop in Portland, Sacramento, see some sand dunes, Hearst Castle, Disneyland, Universal, the Wedding, Money Pit, In and Out Burger, Wetzels Pretzels, and possibly the Jelly Belly Factory.

I'm hungry just thinking about it.

Mini Camera Give Away!

How cute is this? Become a follower, post in the comments that you are following and Friday a.m. I will draw a winner!

Flipping Out!

Karla sent me the instructions for this little flip album. I wanted to see if it was easy enough for a beginner, so I made one. Then I made another.

And then another...this one is for my friend, Jenn. I was unable to make it to her wedding.
I used wedding invitation in the album.

And I'm making another one as I blog. This will be an upcoming class. It's so easy to duplicate!

Long Weekend in pictures

For the first time in 12 years, we have baby quail that visit us. I've been trying to snap a decent picture of them but they are sneaky.

I hauled out the smoker and did up some ribs. It was similar to dying and going to heaven. Kerry came home from work, as he walked in the door he said "Someone is having bacon for dinner and it smells good! And it's US!"

You can see the smoke in the meat, it's the red !
I had a photoshoot with my neighbour's dog. And then I made a little book for him. I did a poor job of putting the pictures together in a collage so that I didn't have to upload them all individually here.

Emily wanted to check out the new sculpture downtown. This is in the same spot I took some of the wedding pics last weekend, but the bear was installed 2 days later.

It's pretty neat, in the bear are little things like pears, apples, birds, trees, different things from the area.And then we went to Kasugai Gardens, one of Emily's favourite places.

Then I made her pose for some pictures. She's so unwilling for lack of a better word. I ran some actions and used some textures.

And that brings us to today! The first day of school! I love being back in a routine.

Last Weekend of 'summer'

I always say I can't believe how fast summer went, but really, FALL is my favourite time of year so I'm okay with how fast summer seemed to go by. The saddest thing about fall is that the days get shorter and so do my usable daylight hours. I'm talking about photography hours!

I'm finished processing Rich and Kellyn's wedding photos. I processed them using some actions, and I love how they turned out. I wish I had wedding pictures like these.

We have a list of 'fun' stuff to do this weekend. Gardening, moving a pile of rocks and dirt, cleaning house, more trip planning, vehicle up keep, .....really, I think I'll set up a last weekend of summer photoshoot and not do those list things!

Wednesday Wonderful

I used the most recent Papercrafts magazine for inspiration yesterday and made a bunch of cards.I love the new Designer Series pads of paper.

Wonderful LaRae had another draw for a Hufa lens cap holder. Who thinks of these things? Some smart person that has lost their cap one to many times I think. I don't lose them, I sit on them and break them. This baby clips to your strap and holds the lens cap in place, providing you remember to clip in on the holder.I snapped a few shots of Linus in the yard. This one is SOOC.
I had a mini shoot with this guy today. He really wanted nothing to do with me. That's okay, I still got a bunch of shots of him being elusive.
And a couple more from the wedding.
He's waiting for her, they hadn't seen each other. And they weren't married yet, that came after.

Gorgeous!

I was totally nervous about this weekend's wedding. Worried about the weather, my abilities, my equipment, everything. But it was all for nothing, the bride and groom were so relaxed and the the whole bridal party was so photogenic, made my job easier. The weather was perfect.
These are a few of my favourites. I'm finding the sorting part difficult, I like so many of them.

Congrats to Kellyn and Rich!

Saturday to Tuesday in Photos

Firstly, spiders and their webs are a work of art. Spiders eat their weight in bugs there by helping humans....blah blah blah. This creepy crawly was at the top corner of our deck right above where the hose hangs and the bbq. If it landed on me, I would have died ofshock. The golf club is for reference. It's so far away from the spider because even big strong men were afraid of it.I get the heebie jeebies just looking at it.
Awww... how beautiful. NOT.

Measured the golf club for reference, got all creeped out. I should point out, we don't golf, and we don't know where the club came from, and it's odd that it's just the bottom part, not even the handle. I vaguely remember someone having it under their seat of their car 'just in case'.
When Kerry knocked the giant man eating spider out of it's web, he said including the legs, it was the size of a toonie. He also said it had the biggest spider butt ever. It met with a 2x4.

We took the big dog for a walk downtown. He is not impressed with the very expensive water dish at Stuart park. We have a feeling dogs use it as a toilet. We don't know anyone whose dog will drink out of it, they spend more time sniffing it. Here is where Linus will drink from, the lake and muddy puddles. Some teenaged kids were laughing at Kerry and his furry alligator. We get a kick out of how he lays down in the water and crawls on his belly well Kerry walks him.

Oh, double rainbow goodness! It was a double rainbow across the sky, almost a triple rainbow.
Kerry made this face at the last minute. With the rainbow and the tree, and the fill flash, it reminds me of a Sears portrait studio photo.
I made them pose in the tunnel, the lighting was horrid so I over processed with actions and now I like it.

I thought my dad was joking when he said he was getting a Harley. He was not.

I slapped together a little album of our Anime Adventure for Illy. I'm making one for my kids too.

Planning

I'm blogging from the laptop, so no pictures today.

We hauled out our ancient Washington/Oregon map and the new supersized California map that Amy sent us and our Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives cookbooks. We made lists of what we wanted to see on the drive to Disneyland. The sights we agreed on...
1. food
2. dunes along Oregon's coast
3. Redwoods
4. food
5. good deals
6. a cheap clean hotel

And the ones we weren't sure about...
Hearst Castle (sounds creepy to me)
Karen Russell's house (sounds stalkerish to both of us)

We've picked a couple restaurants, and good thing they have websites, and good thing we checked them out because not all restaurants are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nor are they all open all week. It would have been a trip similar to our trip to Calgary via Kimberly. We had to eat Chinese food in the German capital of B.C. Big let down and the lighting was so bad, we kept taking the same icky curry dish from the smorg.

We went downtown to Roy's shoe store and picked up 4 pairs of Keen shoes for 5o% off. Can't beat that! Kerry got the mountain biking Keen's he was waiting to buy in the States. I got some cute flip flops {gasp} and some suede walking shoes, with all this walking Karla and I have been doing, I needed new shoes. They are also going to be great in Disneyland, I'll have them broken in by then.